The present invention relates to a sun visor having an illuminated mirror on one surface of the sun visor body with an electrified light source adjacent the mirror, and more particularly to a system for electrically contacting with the light source located in the visor body.
A sun visor of this type is described in Federal Republic of Germany Pat. No. 27 03 447, which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,864. This patent discloses passing the electric current supply wires for the source of illumination associated with the mirror through the outer support of the sun visor. Conducting both the current feed wire and the ground wire through the outer support results in difficulties in manufacture and assembly, due to the lack of space available in the support and the necessity of insulating the corresponding contacts from each other. Furthermore, this arrangement is necessary only if the main swivel shaft of the sun visor is comprised of electrically non-conductive plastic. However, sun-visor shafts formed of steel rod are preferred by customers since their stability is substantially greater than sun-visor shafts formed of plastic. There is the possibility, also indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,864 of conducting the current feed wire through the outer support while using the main swivel shaft of the sun visor as the ground contact. However, Federal Republic of German Pat. No. 27 03 447 does not give any more detailed teaching as to a procedure for accomplishing this.
Federal Republic of Germany Utility Model No. 7 908 205 teaches a sun visor with an illuminating device, in which the ground contact is attached to the sun-visor shaft and the shaft, in turn, is connected in an electrically conductive manner to the body of the car. The sun-visor shaft in this case is a metal tube through which the current-conducting wire is passed. Toward its end that is contained within the sun-visor body, the sun-visor shaft has a bare region which is gripped around by a U-shaped contact spring. The bare region possibly extends only over a given region of the periphery of the shaft. The grounding contact is produced when a spring arm of the contact spring contacts the bare region of the shaft. This sun visor has the disadvantage that the supply of electric current for the illuminating device takes place through the swivel bearing. This makes it necessary to use a bored shaft of solid material or a shaft consisting of a tube, which naturally has less stability and is not easy to bend. Furthermore, there is the drawback that the contact spring grips over the free end of the sun-visor shaft. During the mounting of the sun-visor shaft, this arrangement does not prevent the contact spring from being displaced by the end of the shaft possibly striking against it. Such displacement could move the contact spring out of its position at which electric contact is possible. Furthermore, a contact spring which surrounds the sun-visor shaft appears rather expensive, due to its necessarily relatively large dimensions, particularly if the spring is made of non-ferrous metal in order to assure a good contact.